Who: Wash and Carolina What: Carolina confronts Wash about his drinking When: This evening Where: Wash and Carolina's apartment Rating/Warnings: Medium to high; Language and violence, references to assault, past abuse, and trauma Status: Complete!
It should have been a good evening. Wash was supposed to have met up with Anna for dinner at one of her favorite restaurants, then they probably would have ended up either at her house or his apartment for some intimate time. That had been the original plan and was pretty par for the course for the two friends. However, Anna’s ex-boyfriend had come into the picture and the man hadn’t made a good impression on either Anna or Wash. The things he had said to Anna had been intentionally cruel and belittling, and had pissed Wash off in a way he had not been in a very long time. It reminded him a little too much of how Ralph had talked to him all those years ago.
The encounter wasn’t more than ten minutes, but it had ruined the evening. Anna’s usual happy and sunshine demeanor had been dimmed to the point of going out. Wash hadn’t helped the situation by practically assaulting the ex-boyfriend by slamming him against the car and threatening him. After the ex had finally left, Wash had tried to tell Anna that the things the man had said: that Anna was easy, that no one would love her, that she was worthless, weren’t true, but he’d stumbled over his own insecurities and had only managed to embarrass and confuse Anna more.
She hadn’t turned him away when he brought dinner to her house. Anna had needed a drink, and the two of them spent the rest of the evening sharing a bottle of whiskey and not saying much of anything to each other. Stefan had come home to find Anna asleep and a very drunk Wash. He helpfully put Anna to bed and gave Wash a ride home.
Along the way, Wash explained what had happened, becoming angrier and angrier as he did. He confided in Stefan that he could have killed the man, and Stefan, for his part, didn’t disagree. He had let Wash out at his building with Wash assuring him he could make it up to the apartment himself.
Somehow, Wash wasn’t entirely sure how, he managed to get from the ground floor up to his apartment. He stumbled inside, unintentionally slamming the door behind him. He grunted at Carolina in the living room - something about being home - and went straight into the kitchen where another bottle of whiskey was waiting for him.
Carolina did not jump when the apartment door was slammed, but there was definitely a mental check for where the closest firearm was hidden. Looking up, she thought she could make out the top of a familiar blond head. What the hell was Wash doing slamming the door at this hour? Or at any hour, for that matter. She glanced at the clock on the wall and frowned. He had said he had been meeting Anna for dinner, so when the dinner hour had passed with the two of them still absent from the apartment, she had not expected him back until morning.
“Wash?” She called out toward the kitchen. The unintelligible grunt she received in return made her frown deeper. Closing the book she was reading, Carolina got up to go check on her brother. Had something happened between the two? It was possible, although she found it difficult to contemplate considering Anna’s upbeat nature. Plus, the girl had promised the Marine that she would not leave her brother friendless, even if their benefits ended. At least, she had better have kept that promise.
Carolina had not even made it to the kitchen proper before her nose was assaulted with the smell of whiskey. “Jesus, Wash. What did you do, bathe in the liquor cabinet?” And he was trying to drink more?! She scowled and reached for the bottle he was trying to pour. “I think you’ve had enough.”
“I’ve had a bad night, alright?” He snapped back at her, yanking the bottle out of her reach. The act caused him to stumble a little bit and he caught himself on the kitchen counter. He didn’t even reach for a glass, instead being content to glug a shot straight from the bottle. “Came ‘cross Anna’s ex. Fucking asshole treated her like shit an’ got inta ‘er head enough she couldn’ even defend herself. I couldn’ help her. All I did was make it worse.” Another glug from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. Epsilon was whispering at the back of his mind, conjuring ghosts that had never existed. “Like every time I open my damn mouth.”
“Maybe if your damn mouth wasn’t drunk-” Carolina stopped and shook her head. There was no point in arguing with someone who was too far gone to even remember it in the morning. Still, she could not help the disgusted look on her face as she went to once again try and separate Wash from the bottle. “Drinking more of that shit isn’t going to help fix anything, either.”
Wash stopped, bottle mostly to his lips again and stared at her. “What?” He demanded, but went on before Carolina had a chance to say anything. “You think I was fucking drunk?” He actually had to laugh, but the noise was humorless. “I got news for ya. I wasn’t. No, my mouth can fuck shit up sober.”
Carolina reached for the bottle as Wash was taking another pull. He jerked away from her, this time spilling whiskey down his front and stumbling back with enough force to hit the counter behind him with a grunt. “What the fuck, Carolina?” He snapped at her, voice pitching upwards slightly. “Leave me alone!”
“Really? Because I don’t think you actually remember what it’s like to be sober.” Carolina snapped back. She had watched him spiral slowly but surely ever since she had arrived in Orange County. Sure, it had been mostly gradual, but it had not occurred to her that Wash was not even aware of how much he drank on a daily basis. She knew. She knew and she had kept her mouth shut. That was on her, but enough was enough.
“No, I’m not going to leave you alone.” Carolina glared. She was going to take that bottle from him if she had to literally pry his fingers off of it one by one. Which, by the looks of things, she just might have to do. “How many bottles have you had today? One? Two? Three? That’s not healthy, Wash.”
Truth be told, Wash’s spiral down had started before Carolina had ever arrived in Orange County, not that she would have known that. There had been a time a year or so ago, that Wash had actually been aware of how much he drank and had made it a point to not drink that often for fear of turning into what his stepfather had become and been. Somewhere along the way between having memories not belonging to him shoved into his head, having a mental break, forcing Kyu out of his life, continuing Dreaming when he should have died, wanting to die, and fighting the horrors Orange County constantly threw his way, Wash’s fears had been forgotten about.
And he didn’t care. “What difference does it make?” He demanded. He pushed by Carolina and made his way into the living room, gripping the neck of the bottle as though it were a lifeline. He turned to glare back at Carolina, “you’ve never had a problem with my drinkin’ before! In fact, you kick me out t’ a bar every time you wanna fuck Kanan!”
“If you don’t know how much you’ve had, it’s time to stop drinking. We can finish this in the morning. If you even remember this, that is.” She followed him to the living room, not about to give up on getting the bottle away. Carolina was starting to realize just how badly she had managed to mess up when it came to Wash’s drinking. Had she really been that blind? Apparently, she had.
Did he really just- With a growl, Carolina held up one finger. “I offered to pay your bar tab once, because I felt bad kicking you out of the apartment. At the time I figured you’d at least know how to fucking stop drinking at some point. Trust me, I won’t make the same mistake again.” She hadn’t even considered that her sex life of all things would even be a cause for contention. Sure, she hadn’t had a roommate since she was at the Academy, but it’s not like she minded making herself scarce anytime he wanted private time with Anna. She held her hand out, tired of chasing him.“Give me the damn bottle, Wash.”
“Where did you think I went when you asked for the apartment?” He shouted, his voice rising in pitch again. There was no way for Carolina to know, and it wasn’t as if Wash went to a bar every time Carolina wanted some alone time with her Jedi - sometimes he went to Anna’s. And he knew that nor was it her fault for wanting privacy. And he really didn’t care what she and Kanan did, so long as he neither saw or heard it. He was only happy to give them their space. That hadn’t stopped him from throwing it back at her anyway.
He stepped away from her again, as if she had come after him. He held the bottle away from her. It wasn’t even about him wanting to drink out of it anyway. “No,” he told her matter of factly. “In case ya forgot, y’re not my CO and I don’t take orders from you anymore. You think you can just bark at me and I’ll do whatever you say?” Not that he hadn’t been doing that this whole time, joining a gym, sparing every other day. And, again, honestly, he hadn’t minded. He’d fallen into the subordinate role so easily. It had been comfortable, like being wrapped up in a blanket. Safe. Secure. But not anymore. “Maybe it was a thing we did when you got back here, but I’m not doin’ that shit anymore! I’m not gonna let you order me around, kicking me out of the apartment when you could be fucking dying! The fuck was I supposed t’do?!”
He took another hit from the bottle, this time to spite his sister rather than actually wanting to drink. “So, no. I’m not gonna take orders from you.” he pointed a finger at her accusingly, “You gave up that right!”
Carolina was quiet for a long moment as she struggled to keep her temper under control. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. “You’re right. I’m not your CO anymore.” She had been pulling and pushing him into doing things since she had arrived. Things that she had wanted for him. That she had thought he needed. “And you don’t have to follow my orders anymore.” She had hoped that it would eventually turn into more of a sibling-type relationship and had even thought they were making progress. Apparently, she had been wrong.
“But I am your sister, and as such I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, especially if it can be prevented by just keeping you out of the apartment until it passes.” Carolina stepped forward again, getting ready to resort to...alternative measures in order to separate Wash from the bottle. She’d ask once more, and then he was going to find himself glaring at the ceiling instead of at her. “And I’m asking you to give me the fucking bottle before you give yourself alcohol poisoning. If you haven’t already.”
“Keep me safe?” Wash balked, his voice reaching new levels of pitch that could likely be heard the next apartment over. “Keep me safe?!” He couldn’t believe the audacity. “What? Like you wanted to keep Shepard safe? I’ve been dealing with this shit for over a year, Carolina. A goddamn fucking year! And you know why I’ve been dealing with this for a year? Because you left me behind to rot!” The moment the words were out, Wash regretted saying them. Deep down he knew it was wrong for him to throw that in Carolina’s face. His accident had changed everything for her. He knew that.
But it was out now and his drunken anger couldn’t be reasoned with. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Everything he had buried, everything he had kept bottled up and shoved aside since Carolina and York both had reappeared in his life in favor of reconnecting with them, came swirling to the top like a toxic film and Wash needed to get it out of him.
He heard the words he was saying, saying purposefully because he knew they would hurt her. “I did everything you told me to do. I was blown up for you! I was in a coma for three weeks. And when I woke up, my squad - the people I counted on, the people who were my family were gone!”
Carolina snapped. She had warned him and he had refused to listen. So now, he would have to listen to her. Between one moment and the next she closed the distance between them. If Wash hadn’t been five steps into the wind he might’ve been able to see it coming, or at least managed to dodge out of the way. As it was, the older woman barely had any difficulty getting the upper hand. The arm holding the whiskey bottle was twisted behind Wash’s back as she pushed him roughly against the wall. Her other hand finally pried his fingers away from the bottle and tossed it in the general direction of the couch. A part of her hoped it would break, even though she really did not want to spend the rest of the night picking up glass shards.
“That’s right.” Carolina hissed in Wash’s ear. “You followed my orders. Those same fucking orders that you’d always followed, except this time you almost lost your life. You sure as hell lost your career. And for what? For a Captain on a power trip? For a squad of people you’d thought were your family but couldn’t even be bothered to be there when you woke up? Is that what you thought they did? Or do you blame me for sending them away as well?”
She twisted his arm further, preventing any possible escape, but most of all preventing Wash from seeing her face. Never let them see you cry. “Let it all out, Washington. Tell me how you really feel, since you’ve apparently been biting your tongue ever since I came here.” Carolina’s voice was cold as she continued. “Or can you only tell those things to the bottom of a whiskey bottle?”
Wash saw Carolina come at him and he knew what was coming, just as he knew what was coming every time his stepfather took a step towards him. This time, he really had asked for it. He was in no state to try and dodge the attack and the next thing he knew his face was pressed solidly against the far wall and Carolina had his arm twisted at an uncomfortable angle up his spine and was hissing in his ear. It took a moment for him to remember that he wasn’t in fact twelve years old and that Carolina was not his stepfather. He opened his eyes and tried to look back towards her. All he could see was a catch of red hair.
He grunted, but made no attempt to get out of her grasp. Either he knew he wasn’t going to win an actual physical fight, or, all military training aside, he had been conditioned to not move and simply take the beating that was coming to him. No beating came, however. Carolina had promised to never hit him, to never actually hit him. He almost wished she just would and put him out of his misery - take her anger out on him and justify the reason he was taking his out on her.
Instead she hissed in his ear, voicing everything he had felt since waking up alone in a V.A. hospital room alone and with a broken skull. Almost as if she were another ghost of an A.I. he was forced to listen to and couldn’t silence. Since he couldn’t look at her, he glared at the wall. Well, since she’d asked. “Yeah,” he grunted, “that’s how I really feel, Boss. We were just cannon fodder for you. Didja even look back once? Or did you jus’ keep runnin’ after that brass ring? Jus’ one more obsession fer you t’go after t’ make it all alright.”
Carolina closed her eyes. She had it coming, had invited it even, but fuck if it didn’t hurt anyway. Maybe some part of her had forced him to say the words because she knew it would hurt. The truth was she hadn’t looked back. The moment the flag was theirs she had dropped everything for a personal vendetta. She had trusted her men to finish the job without her, but in doing so she had let them all down. Agent Carolina, Number fucking One. Even in the Dreams, she had been the one that sent in when things went to shit and her team needed to be bailed out. Except in the real world she had forgotten that and had nearly lost Wash because of it. Or maybe she had lost him. They were both very different people now and not everything had changed for the better. Another thing to add to her plate.
She wanted to tell him how hard she had fought their deployment orders to let them stay, or to at least let one of them remain at home so that the rookie wouldn’t be alone. She wanted to tell him how it had nearly come to physical blows with the General in his hospital room. But what was the point? In the end, she had lost the battle and it had been her that had forced the squad to leave. She was the CO. The Commanding Officer. It was her that would take responsibility when things went to hell in a handbasket. And right now that meant she was going to fix what she could of the shit that had happened when she had still been his CO and get Wash back on his feet, whether he wanted to or not.
“I was obsessed. I won’t deny that. What happened to you was my fault and I won’t ask you to forgive me, but drinking yourself into oblivion isn’t going to make the pain go away. It’ll just make things worse.” Carolina said once she was sure that her voice wouldn’t betray her. “You said you’ve been here over a year taking care of yourself? Well it doesn’t fucking show. What would happen if the portals opened up again? What if Gale was stuck at the other end of the county fighting a thousand blaster-wielding drones? What happens if Anna winds up meeting her ex again? Right now you can’t even piss straight, let alone shoot. A drunkard can’t protect anyone, not even himself.”
Carolina was right. Wash said that alcohol quieted Epsilon, but it wasn’t working anymore. The A.I. was screaming at him, drudging up every painful memory Wash had, his own or otherwise, and was hurling it through his mind at break neck speed. Through it, he heard Carolina’s voice, somehow clear as a goddamn bell, asking him how he was going to protect the people he loved in the state he was in.
Her words stung his ears and sent a jolt down his spine. She was right. There was no way he could protect Gale or Anna, or help Stefan, help anyone, the pathetic mess that he was. It was those very people - Carolina, even York included - were the reason he was still alive, they were the reason he hadn’t turned his side arm on himself.
He wanted to tell her that, to tell her knew he was worthless to the people who mattered most to him. The words danced on his tongue but his mouth refused to open and form them. He closed his eyes and said nothing for a few long moments. His arm and shoulder hurt. The space at the back of his neck where Carolina’s forearm had him pinned ached and there was a part of him starting to relish the pain.
Finally after a few very long moments Wash opened his eyes. He looked back and again could only catch a hint of red hair out of the side of his vision. “Are y’gonna stand there pinnin’ me t’the wall all night? Either kick my ass, or let me go.”
“I should kick your ass.” Carolina snarled. “I should drag you onto the mats and flip you until you get all this shit out of your system. Except I doubt even kicking your ass would be enough. Your skull is too thick for that.” Carefully, she brushed her eyes and cheeks against her forearm, leaving thin streaks of black eyeliner as she removed any evidence of her weakness. As long as he focused his anger on her, maybe it would distract him from whatever had him drinking tonight. If there even was a reason he drank anymore.
“And I’m not about to let you go. As you are now, you’d just crawl right back to that bottle and you’re better than that.” Carolina eased up a bit on his neck, fully intending to frog-march him from the living room and dump him into his shower. Maybe a bit of cold water would sober him up a bit more.
Wash felt something brush against the back of his head, a whisper of a touch, as though she had tilted her head against her arm and her hair brushed against his. The feeling sent goosebumps down his arms. Something under all the booze and anger told him something wasn’t quite right. That something didn’t have a prayer of surfacing, though. Wash grunted. “So you’re gonna stand there pinning me against th’ wall forever, then?” He felt her arm ease up, but Wash didn’t move. He grunted again. “Fine. I don’t fucking care. Waste y’r time if ya want to.” His eyes turned back to the wall. “I’m a lost cause.”
The words made Carolina pull back in surprise, but only for a moment. The next she was stepping forward, growling, “don’t you ever say that again!” She wanted to smack him, to shake him until he woke up from whatever the spiral had taken him. She couldn’t go back in time, couldn’t change the fact that he had woken up alone or that his stepfather had given him more scars than the military and the Dreams combined. She couldn’t do anything and that pissed her off more than anything he could say.
“God dammit, Wash!” Carolina slammed her fist against the wall next to Wash’s head. The plaster cracked and broke around her knuckles. “You never fucking listen, do you? Do you really think that I - that any of us - would have ever trusted you to watch our backs if you didn’t matter?” Shaking her head, she finally letting him go and stepped away. Her entire body shook with anger. She needed to get out of there. Before she hit something that couldn’t be repaired.
“The only one one that’s given up is you, David. Call me when you want to start fighting back. Or when you remember that you’re worth fighting for.” Carolina’s voice was softer, but the anger was still very much there. “I’ll be there.”
Spotting the half-empty whiskey bottle, Carolina scooped it up and slammed it into the trash can on her way out. The sound of glass breaking was loud in the quiet apartment, even if it barely registered above the rage boiling through her blood. Grabbing her phone from the counter, she paused over her keys before leaving them where they sat. It would be safer if she walked wherever she was going and right now she’d be glad to put a mugger or two out of business.
Wash physically jumped when Carolina struck the wall, eyes instinctively squeezing shut and body tensing in preparation. However, the next thing Wash knew the pressure on his neck was gone and he had his arm back. He didn’t turn around to face Carolina. For some reason he didn’t understand, he couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
He lifted his head slightly when she called him David. He couldn’t remember the last time she had called him that - if she had ever called him that. His fists clenched at his sides. Where did she think she could get off calling him fucking David, anyway?! As if she had the right to?
Wash bit hard on his teeth. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He’d said too much and had done enough damage. Ever notice every time you open your mouth you make things worse?
Shut up! Leave me alone, goddammit!
He heard Carolina moving and raised his head just enough to look back and see her leave. She hadn’t taken her keys with her? Where the fuck was she going? A shot of fear ran up his spine. Was she coming back?
Wash shook his head. He told himself he didn’t care if she did or not and tried to believe it. He went into the kitchen and frowned darkly at the trashcan. Whiskey leaked out of the break at the bottom of the bottle to saturate the bag and probably the can underneath. Wash told himself he didn’t care about that either. It wasn’t as if that was his only way of getting alcohol.
A few moments later, Wash left the apartment as well, shoulders hunched, and staggered towards his favorite bar.